1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mirrors. More particularly, the present invention relates to a mirror lens and assembly for mounting onto a vehicle. Even more particularly, the present invention relates to a mirror lens having a flatter portion and a substantially curved portion which cooperate to increase a user's field of view at the sides of a vehicle.
2. Prior Art
Driving a school bus can be an extremely demanding task. A school bus driver must constantly watch the road to ensure that the bus is not involved in an accident. Additionally, the driver must also keep an eye on the students to ensure that they are behaving properly.
One of the most important tasks of the driver, though, is ensuring the safety of the students as they board and exit the bus. Every year, the National Safety Council reports the occurrence of thousands of school bus accidents. In accidents where a child is injured or killed, it is usually a direct result of being struck by the bus itself while the child is boarding or exiting the bus. During these "critical" periods of time, the bus driver must be checking the exterior of the bus, and more particularly, the sides, and front of the bus. To aid in this process, many differently configured mirrors have been developed.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,257 issued Feb. 14, 1989 to Schmidt et alia discloses two separate mirrors attached to a U-shaped bar. The mirrors are externally mounted to a school bus to ensure that the driver can see what is taking place at and around the sides of the bus. The mirrors used are generally denoted as flat mirrors; however, it has been instituted in the art that one of the two separate mirrors may be a circular-based convex mirror which is utilized to provide a larger viewing area for the bus driver.
Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,084,785 teaches an Aspheric Elliptical Paraboloid SAFETY MIRROR which is mountable adjacent the perimeter of a vehicle to expand the field of view of the driver. Although the mirror taught in the '785 patent provides an expanded field of view, it substantially distorts the images reflected therein. This makes the driver's job of processing and understanding the images much more difficult. Also, the field of view provided by a single convex mirror generally is not as great as that afforded by the use of two separate mirrors.
Several problems exist when using two separate mirrors attached to the side of a vehicle, such as a school bus. First, there has to this point always been some amount of overlapping field of view when utilizing a flat mirror in conjunction with a convex mirror. This causes perceptual problems for the driver in that the overlap makes it difficult for the driver to distinguish actual distances of objects. As such, it is difficult for the driver to develop a clear picture of what is being seen. Driver's which use a plurality of mirrors externally mounted to a vehicle, generally, must obtain training to learn how to interpret the size and distance of the objects represented by the images in the mirror.
Also, in using two separate mirrors, one must ensure that each mirror is properly adjusted and that the mirrors are suitably mounted so that they do not excessively vibrate as the vehicle upon which they are mounted travels along. It is to the solution of these problems to which the present invention is directed.